Zachary Heilman
zackemail@gmail.com
    Location: São Paulo, Brazil
    Nationality: American
    Age: 33
    Interests: Travel, sports and languages


About this website:
    I currently live in Sao Paulo, Brazil, working as a web developer. I came here on vacation and fell in love with a local girl and have been here for almost 3 years now.
    The first year I was here I was mostly just enjoying my time here and studying Portuguese. Over time, I had a large collection of notes and notepads filled with words and phrases I was practicing. That led me to the idea of putting it all down in a database and making it available on the web. Since flashcards were the best way for me to practice (real hand drawn cards) I decided to take that same technique and apply it to the site.
    From there, the site has grown a lot. I added other games such as verb conjugation and word guessing. I recorded audio for Portuguese, downloaded pictures to match words, inputted thousands of example sentences and even created offline games like the widgets you can find in the games menu drop-down. After everything seemed to be in place, I decided it wouldn't take much extra work to add more languages. I currently have 8 languages (as of August 2007). The biggest challenge of the entire site has been to find good quality words to use for the dictionary. I've used several methods but none are perfect. In fact, that is why I allow editing and rating of words, in order to have other users help improve the words in this site. Especially because I know so little about the other langauges being offered, I had hoped that I could depend on the users to 'self-correct' mistakes they found.
    This site is owned, managed, edited, monitored, and paid for by me alone. Other than the examples and word corrections made by friends, I have built this alone. I say that just in hopes that people aren't too critical of any errors they might find here. And to let people know that their help and contributions (word contributions) are much appreciated.

    Please feel free to contact me with any questions or advice you would like to share.
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